How do maximalists keep their homes clean?

Srila Chatterjee, Mumbai

Srila Chatterjee lives in a south Mumbai apartment that’s more than a century old, where colour, art and objects have been layered over decades. She is the founder of Baro Market, and 47-A, a gallery in Khotachi Wadi.

Srila Chatterjee has no interest in playing the museum guard in her own home. She loves her things, but not more than she loves life unfolding around them. “Maybe I’m different from many other people who have beautiful things,” she says. “I am not paranoid about things… They are there to enjoy.”

Shan Bhatnagar, Jaipur

Artist, interior designer and hotelier Shan Bhatnagar lives in his family’s ancestral home in Jaipur, built in the early 1950s, that’s layered with Pichwais, miniatures, bronzes, chandeliers, shamadans with mirrored ceilings and mosaic floors.

If Mumbai’s enemy is humidity and sun, Jaipur’s is dust. “Sometimes even cleaning twice a day is not enough… but it is impossible to clean twice a day,” Shan says. His response is routine. Chandeliers are dismantled once a month: a staff member trained in delicate handling lays each piece out on a soft cloth, cleans, and reassembles them patiently. For shelves laden with bronzes and artefacts, the entire arrangement is cleared and dusted every three days but never without a reference photograph first. “Because there is a story to everything,” he explains. Even within the abundance, he insists on taxonomy: “goddesses on one side, Vishnu on one side.”

The monsoon, though short in Jaipur, brings its own challenges. Miniature paintings are rotated out and stored in trunks with moisture-absorbing charcoal blocks. Others stay on the walls, supported by multiple Absorbia packs placed discreetly in rooms. This rhythm of rotation is also seasonal and ceremonial: certain Pichwais appear during Diwali, others in summer, echoing the way these works were originally used in ancient times.

Srimoyi Bhattacharya, Goa

Communications strategist and founder of Peepul Consulting, Srimoyi Bhattacharya lives in a villa in Aldona, Goa, overlooking the Mapusa river. Her home, like her life, is layered with travel, textiles, books and art but it is also a daily negotiation with the climate.

Goa is a different school of maintenance and Srimoyi treats its monsoon like a season of housekeeping. “Everybody talks about spring cleaning,” she says, “but actually for us, it’s all about monsoon cleaning.” The rains bring mould, swelling wood, powdery films on walls and the faint smell of damp in closed cupboards.

The response is steady: cupboards left open on dry days to let air circulate, wardrobes fitted with rattan and glass to reduce condensation and dehumidifiers are running in every room. A team comes in once a month for a deep clean, shifting paintings off walls and furniture away from corners to check the damage the air has done.

Some materials demand particular vigilance. Leather is the most difficult. She has seen bags go mouldy in a single season and now she sends them to specialist cleaners and keeps them packed with dehumidifying pouches when not in use. Books, too, are vulnerable—jackets fade in the sun, pages soften in the damp. Her solution is both rotation and acceptance: cushions and throws are swapped every week or two to limit exposure and she accepts that certain things will simply change colour. Wallpaper, she’s learned, survives best when it has an acrylic- or canvas-like base. There is a specific wall emulsion she prefers for her textured finishes; in monsoon it can bloom a fine powder and needs a gentle wipe with a soft cloth.

Indu Antony, Bengaluru

Sixteen years in the same home has made Indu Antony’s routines exact: a house tuned to plants, her precious sari collection and dust, kept in order by quiet, daily work rather than a strict roster.

In Bengaluru, at Indu’s house there is no rigid schedule for cleaning, instead there is year-round attentiveness. The day begins with plants—somewhere between 200 and 300 of them—each with its own requirement for light, water and nutrition. She checks for mealy bugs and thrips; she rotates pots across the seasons because sun paths shift and plants need different kinds of light at different times. It’s daily maintenance, yes, but also daily pleasure, the excitement of a new leaf is part of why she does it.

Other care spirals out from her sensitivities. Indu lives with two cats and is allergic to dust, so the vacuum comes out often and an air purifier runs in the background. When nearby construction sends a film of micro-dust through open windows (she dislikes sealing the house), she double-masks to clean. Books are lifted out and dusted outside so particles don’t resettle on the shelves and she has designed away one of the biggest culprits: there isn’t a single open-shelf cupboard in the house.

In Bengaluru too, monsoon has its own choreography: she re-silicones window joints before the rains so water doesn’t creep inside and under wooden floors; she rotates plants to track the sun; and textiles demand extra attention. She collects saris and during damp months she takes them out once or twice a month to iron out the musty smell, refolding so creases don’t set; her Kanjivarams are wrapped in muslin. Parcels that arrive smelling of storage are opened on a drying rack outside the door before they cross the threshold. Antique furniture is oiled with coconut oil when it looks like it needs it—no schedule, just judgment.

Mehek Malhotra, Dehradun

Designer and illustrator Mehek Malhotra, founder of the independent studio Giggling Monkey and Country Content Lead at Snapchat, lives in a colour-drenched bungalow in Dehradun where discipline learned in an army childhood meets a playful, maximalist rebellion.

Up north in Dehradun, Mehek’s house is buoyant, alive with hand-painted murals, rugs, and cats. It’s a bungalow that refuses restraint. Growing up in an army household, she and her sister were expected to make their beds and dust their rooms even with staff around. At the time it felt unfair, but as an adult she sees it differently: “The care you show your house,” she says, “is only a reflection of how much you care about your future self.”